But what required the denial from the developer (and I feel horrible for him) is that this bug gained so much mainstream attention and speculation. It was only a matter of time before a reporter wanting to further the story got in touch with him.
He was in a bad situation - don't respond and have that misconstrued or respond and deny and give credence to the theory.
We all know that he didn't do it intentionally and in absence of any supporting evidence in all cases these are simple mistakes, but the general public who are currently whipped up in a frenzy around NSA revelations don't know that.
Actually, I hadn't known that. But this article gave me strong reasons to believe that it was, indeed, accidental. I certainly recognize that this is the sort of mistake that is extremely easy to make.
Never mind the fact that the code was apparently reviewed, so I guess the reviewer would have been in on it as well.
There are always people who prefer to play the blame game instead of actually working to solve the problem.
If something is important to you, you should spend more resources than zero on it.